, still smiling in a peculiar
way.

"Be about here, and go round to the different sentries."

"With arrows flying, perhaps."

"But it will be dark, and they are not likely to hit," I said.
"Besides, I might be useful fetching ammunition and helping to load."

"You can stay about," he said, clapping both hands on my shoulders, and
laughing. "I don't think you need be ashamed of your cowardice, my
boy."

He walked away, leaving me feeling puzzled, for I hardly knew what he
meant, whether he was joking me or laughing at me for what I said. But
it was all put out of my head directly by a little bustle at the gate,
where the men who had been scouting were beginning to return, so as to
be well in shelter before it grew dark; and as I followed them up, the
report they made to the officers soon reached my ears.

It was very brief: they had seen no Indians, but had followed the track
of those who had fetched away the bodies of their dead, and traced them
to a portion of the forest some six miles away, when, not feeling it
wise to follow farther, they had come straight across country home.

There was neither moon nor star that night, as, with every light
carefully extinguished in camp, patient watch was kept, and every eye
fixed from three of the sides upon the edge of the forest beyond the
plantations. So still was everything that, save when a faint whisper
rose when an officer went round, the place might have been unoccupied.

But the hours glided by with nothing to occasion the slightest alarm, as
we all listened to the faint sounds which came from distant forest and
swamp. So still was it that even the splash of some great fish in the
river reached our ears as we leaned over the great fence by the gateway.

I had been round the enclosure with my father twice in the course of the
evening, for though tired I was too much excited to sleep. Then I had
been and had a chat with our Sarah, in the hospital-room, and after that
gone to the little side shelter by our tent, where Hannibal and Pomp
were both sleeping as peaceably as if there were no danger in the air.

As I stood looking down at them, it was with something like a feeling of
envy, for I was terribly heavy, and would gladly have lain down to
sleep, but it was impossible then; and as I left them and crossed the
great enclosure, I heard a low whispered conversation going on just in
front, and as I stopped short a hand caught mine, and said sternly--

"Who is